RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Weeks af­ter mak­ing his­to­ry on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, Na­pari­ma Col­lege stu­dent Regi­nald Mo­hammed has added an­oth­er achieve­ment to an al­ready im­pres­sive aca­d­e­m­ic record, se­cur­ing five dis­tinc­tions in his Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) ex­am­i­na­tions.

The 18-year-old’s lat­est suc­cess comes just weeks af­ter he won a bronze medal at the 57th In­ter­na­tion­al Chem­istry Olympiad in Tashkent, Uzbek­istan, be­com­ing the first Trinidad and To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tive to medal at the pres­ti­gious com­pe­ti­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed said the CAPE re­sults were an­oth­er re­ward for years of hard work.

His suc­cess is hard­ly sur­pris­ing giv­en his track record.

In 2024, Mo­hammed won the Pres­i­dent’s Medal for the high­est-per­form­ing stu­dent at CSEC, earn­ing gold.

But while aca­d­e­mics have been a ma­jor part of his jour­ney at Na­pari­ma, Mo­hammed has al­so im­mersed him­self in school life be­yond the class­room.

In his fi­nal year, he served as pres­i­dent of both the In­di­an Cul­tur­al Club and the Sci­ence Club.

His in­volve­ment with the In­di­an Cul­tur­al Club has spanned his en­tire sev­en years at Na­pari­ma.

Mo­hammed said he has been play­ing the vi­o­lin for ten years.

He said for him mu­sic has been an­oth­er av­enue through which he has de­vel­oped dis­ci­pline and cre­ativ­i­ty.

As pres­i­dent of the Sci­ence Club, Mo­hammed said he was able to com­bine his aca­d­e­m­ic strength with his de­sire to help oth­er stu­dents.

Fol­low­ing his ex­pe­ri­ence at the In­ter­na­tion­al Chem­istry Olympiad, he said he tu­tored younger stu­dents prepar­ing for chem­istry com­pe­ti­tions. The com­pe­ti­tion brought to­geth­er some of the world’s top chem­istry stu­dents un­der the age of 20 who had not yet be­gun ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion. Mo­hammed was part of the four-mem­ber Trinidad and To­ba­go team, along­side Leon Copi­lah of Iere High School, Soren Nar­ine of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege and Zee­shaan Lall of Na­pari­ma Col­lege.

Mo­hammed not­ed that the suc­cess at the Olympiad was not the re­sult of a one-off ef­fort, but years of prepa­ra­tion by stu­dents and teach­ers at Na­pari­ma.

He ad­mit­ted that jug­gling aca­d­e­mics, ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties and his per­son­al life was not al­ways easy.

He de­scribed bal­anc­ing his com­mit­ments while find­ing time for fam­i­ly and friends as his great­est chal­lenge.

But rather than al­low­ing the de­mands to over­whelm him, he re­lied on care­ful time man­age­ment.

“I made sure to stay fo­cused on my goals at the end of the day,” he said.

He said that dis­ci­pline has al­so shaped his ad­vice to younger stu­dents.

Mo­hammed urged them to work hard, pur­sue their pas­sions and make use of the op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able to them both in­side and out­side school.

He al­so en­cour­aged stu­dents to look be­yond tra­di­tion­al text­books and past pa­pers, point­ing to the wealth of in­for­ma­tion now avail­able on­line.

“You could use all sorts of tools on­line to help and as­sist with your learn­ing that oth­ers in the past wouldn’t have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to use.”

He al­so cau­tioned against pres­sur­ing stu­dents along a par­tic­u­lar ca­reer path, say­ing they should pur­sue what in­ter­ests them the most.

Mo­hammed said young peo­ple should keep their op­tions open and con­tin­ue ex­plor­ing their pas­sions.

He said stu­dents should not re­strict them­selves to one field sim­ply be­cause of the sub­jects they choose at school.

He not­ed that he was still able to ex­cel in the sci­ences while nur­tur­ing his love for mu­sic and cul­ture and tak­ing on lead­er­ship re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Now, as he pre­pares to move on from Na­pari­ma Col­lege, Mo­hammed said he is keen to ac­knowl­edge those who helped him along the way.

He thanked the school’s prin­ci­pal Roger Ali, fac­ul­ty and his fel­low stu­dents for their sup­port through­out his sev­en years at Na­pari­ma.

He al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the Bharatiya Vidya Sansthaan, where he stud­ies In­di­an clas­si­cal mu­sic, the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions that con­tributed to his de­vel­op­ment.

For Mo­hammed, the bronze medal in Uzbek­istan and his lat­est CAPE suc­cess are mile­stones in a jour­ney built not on­ly on aca­d­e­m­ic ex­cel­lence, but al­so on cu­rios­i­ty, ser­vice, dis­ci­pline and a will­ing­ness to ex­plore every op­por­tu­ni­ty.